Friday, August 3, 2012

Donald Blom: A Repeat Sex Offender Finally Stopped

Where's Katie?

Katie Poirier

Winter's chill was freshly off the air after the Memorial Day
weekend in Moose Lake, Minn., on May 26, 1999. Katie Poirier was working
a late shift alone at the convenience store in D. J.'s Expressway
Conoco service station. Only 19, the popular girl hoped one day to
become a corrections officer. After midnight, a passerby called the
police to report that the night clerk was not present at the store.
Officers arrived and found the store empty. They checked the grainy
videotape from the security monitor and saw Katie leave the store around
11:40 p.m. with a man. He was wearing jeans, a backwards baseball cap
and a New York Yankees jersey with the number 23 on the back, and his
hand was at the back of her neck. From the way she touched her throat,
it appeared he might have tied a cord around it to guide her. Clearly,
the petite blond had been forced to leave. Her family was notified, and
officers formed a plan to search for the girl.
Witnesses said they
had seen a black pick-up truck near the convenience store that evening,
driven by a man that one person admitted had made her nervous. She gave
a partial license plate number, with three numbers and a letter. Police
estimated the abductor's height to be about five foot ten and his
weight around 170. He had longish, light-colored hair and looked to be
around 25. A composite sketch was made from four witness statements, and
this image was broadcast on local television stations and placed in
area newspapers with a plea for information.

Volunteers search for Katie

While tips were being called in, hundreds of people arrived
from around the state to assist in searching the wooded area around the
Conoco station. The police used tracking dogs and helicopters, but found
nothing. Posters with Katie's image went into more newspapers and onto
billboards around the region, turning it into a high profile missing
persons case. A local facility for sex offenders reported that all
inmates were accounted for.

Donald Blom

Among truck drivers checked out was Donald Blom, who had
registered a pick-up with a license plate number matching the numbers
offered by the witness, but the truck in his driveway was white. His
wife, Amy, said they'd gotten rid of the truck with that plate some time
before.
On June 6, after searching a 5-10 mile radius, the
official search concluded, but many volunteers continued, setting up at
booth at the state fair to pass out fliers. They believed that someone
somewhere had seen something that would make the right connection and
bring the girl home. The perpetrator had been bold or stupid, taking a
girl out of a store equipped with a surveillance camera, and
investigators believed he had probably made other mistakes as well. It
was also likely, since he was in this remote area at night, that he was a
regular there, probably a sportsman. They were certain someone had seen
this man either before or after the abduction.
A search
headquarters was established at the Hope Lutheran Church in Moose Lake,
and staff there assisted in handling tips. Maps were placed on the wall
with large Xs indicating the areas that searchers had covered. Boxes of
maroon and gold ribbons, already handed out to hundreds of people, stood
ready for new volunteers. But despite the efforts and hope of so many,
Katie did not turn up.

The Next Step

To keep public interest high, the police turned to a sports
figure for help. Two weeks had passed without success, and, since the
suspect appeared to be a sports fan, police asked Minnesota Twins legend
Paul Molitor to make a public service announcement. His appeal to
Minnesotans across the state got the attention of Darrel Brown, who
worked at the Minnesota Veteran's Home, who began thinking. On June 18
he called the tip line to report his co-worker, Donald Hutchinson, who
had recently stopped driving his black pick-up and who resembled the
composite sketch. He had been absent on the day following the abduction
and had recently cut his hair. Shortly after that, he had suddenly quit
his job there as a janitor, without giving notice.

Paul Molitor

Hutchinson, investigation proved, was actually Donald
Blom. Investigators now knew they had a good lead, since he'd been the
driver of the truck matching the suspect license numbers. It turned out
that he still had a black truck, after all: his wife apparently had
covered for him. He also owned property twelve miles from the Moose Lake
convenience store where Katie had been working. With more digging,
investigators learned that Blom had convictions for sexual offenses —
specifically for abducting petite young girls like Katie. In five
incidents, he had abducted seven. Detectives worked quickly to get
search warrants.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) logo

Agents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension (BCA) went looking for Blom, finding him with his family at
a campground 140 miles from Richfield. In the early morning hours,
agents roused him to ask some questions. He was arrested that afternoon,
June 22, as he drove home from the trip, and taken in for questioning.
Blom had purchased the Moose Lake property about two years earlier, and
neighbors said he'd spent a lot of time there prior to the abduction,
but not since. In fact, uncharacteristically, the place had been
neglected in recent weeks.Blom was not charged with Poirier's abduction immediately, but the sheriff told a reporter for the Star Tribune
that he was "confident that we have the right man," and expected to
file charges shortly. When charges were filed, Blom was held in a county
facility. He set to work making escape plans, which were discovered, so
he was placed in solitary confinement.Blom's
supervisor at the Veteran's Home reported that he had not known of
Blom's criminal record, in part because Blom had used the name
Hutchinson. He said that Blom had kept to himself and few people knew
him. This was apparently Blom's modus operandi: after each incident, he
would change his identity and appearance and keep to himself.Word
came out that while Blom had been friendly and cooperative upon being
arrested, he refused to give a statement and had requested an attorney.
In the meantime, the authorities organized a number of searches.

The Tooth in the Fire Pit

Investigators searched Blom's residence and took various
items, although no official statements were made at the time about what
the items were or how they figured into the investigation. Another
search was conducted on Blom's 20-acre Moose Lake property, and over one
hundred members of the National Guard and several hundred volunteers
participated. They went several miles beyond his property, into the
woods, but by evening they had to call it quits. The next morning, the
search was resumed with renewed vigor, and Katie's mother said that she
had a gut feeling that they would find her daughter alive. Apparently,
some hoped the girl was being held somewhere against her will, but the
sheriff was less optimistic.

Ashes from Donald Blom\'s Firepit

That morning of the second day, among ashes inside a
fire pit on Blom's property, searchers found fragments that appeared to
be bone. These went to a lab for further testing. They were positively
identified as bone fragments and possibly a tooth, which was sent to
odontologists, experts in dental remains.Board-certified
forensic dental expert Dr Ann Norrlander undertook the time-consuming
and expensive examination of the tooth. At first she did not think the
item was even a tooth, but the more she looked, the more she thought it
could be. She knew that under the conditions from which the tooth had
been recovered, any DNA that might have been extracted from the tooth
pulp would have been destroyed, so she had to resort to other methods.
When she came across what appeared to be filling material, this
confirmed it to be a human tooth and made it possible to determine if it
might have been Katie's.Tooth-fillings consist of
an organic matrix and an inorganic filler material. The organic matrix
burns off, leaving the filler particles behind. This allows an analyst
to identify a brand or at least brand group. Manufacturers use as many
as fifty different filler types, any of which will show up brightly on a
dental x-ray. Once identified as dental filling, the elemental
composition and microstructure can be studied for its classification,
based on a distinct chemical signature. While this is still class
evidence (indicating one of a group) rather than uniquely identifying
evidence, it does allow investigators to narrow down possibilities.
Katie could at least be eliminated if it did not match her dental work.

Katie Poirier

The composition of the filling of the tooth from Blom's fire pit matched
that of the fillings used for Katie. In addition, researchers managed
to identify it as tooth #18 and to determine that it was from a young
female. The chance that it had once been in Katie's mouth rather than
someone else from that area, was quite high.While this
type of analysis differs from the highly precise DNA probability
estimates, and thus cannot deliver statements with such impressive
mathematical calculations, it provides another level of certainty that
investigators did not have before the analysis. Since they had few other
physical clues, a lot would hang on it.

The Sex Offender

Blom's problems started early in life. In the tenth
grade, he went to a reform school because he was a frequent truant and
an underage drinker. In 1975, he kidnapped a fourteen-year-old girl,
gagged her and molested her. He locked her in the trunk of his car, but
she escaped and turned him in. He went to trial and was convicted. Three
years later, he committed aggravated assault, and five years after that
was arrested for criminal sexual conduct. He also took two teenage
girls to a remote area where he threatened both and sexually assaulted
one at knifepoint. They were rescued only because a police officer saw
their car parked the wrong way, scaring Blom off. But he was later
caught for this one as well. Thus, Blom had five convictions for sex
offenses that involved kidnap or sexual assault. For some reason, he had
been left free to continue.

Donald Blom

In 1992, a psychologist conducted an extensive
examination, learning from Blom that he'd been abused by his father when
he was 13, and had been a heavy drinker ever since. The professional
predicted that if Blom were not closely monitored, he would probably
engage in additional antisocial behavior. Why he was out of prison after
abducting seven different girls was anyone's guess, and the scandal of
his lenient treatment by the legal system would go right to the heart of
the case. Had the system worked better, Katie would be alive. Instead,
Blom had managed to change his name and shake off the taint of his
criminal history, getting jobs, getting married and his new identity as a
cover to continue to harm.In the case of Katie
Poirier, Blom was charged with kidnapping and the illegal possession of a
firearm, a federal charge—given his prior convictions, Blom was not
allowed to carry any firearm. Hewas offered a
plea agreement, but he still would not talk. But then in September, he
said he wanted to make an admission. He worked out a deal where he would
talk after he called members of his family.His
attorney, Rodney Brodin tried to dissuade him from making any deal,
since Blom would probably still receive a sentence of life in prison,
but Blom insisted he wanted to put the matter behind him. He was told he
would receive incarceration in North Dakota, so he would be near
family. While three defense attorneys sat in the room, watching as Blom
was given several chances to think it through and was fully advised of
his rights, Blom went forward. He seemed clear-headed to all witnesses.

What Blom Said

On September 8, Blom made a tearful confession,
which lasted two and a half hours. He said that on May 26, 1999, he had
gone fishing, and then driven home to Richfield. However, later that
evening, he had returned to his Moose Lake property. On the way, he had
stopped to purchase liquor and have a beer at the bar. He had seen Katie
in the store, doing some chores. He had not known her, but had made a
grab for her, and he said, she had run outside. He had followed and
forced her into his pick-up. Then he had driven her out to his mobile
home.

Katie Poirier

"I don't know if it was just out of guilt or
somethin' or whatever, feelin' stupid," he said, "but then I choked her
and killed her." He had choked her from behind, saying it had taken
about twenty minutes. He did not admit to any other type of assault.
Once he knew she was dead, he had placed her body in the fire pit, in a
fetal position, and then gathered wood and paper to make it burn.Blom's
account was somewhat inconsistent with the evidence, both from the
videotape and the burn pit. He claimed he had walked out with her, with
his hand on her arm or shoulder, but the videotape showed two people
emerging from the back of the store, the man behind the girl with his
hand on the back of her neck. Blom claimed he recalled her asking him
several times to let her go, although she had not fought him until he
was choking her on his property. He said he had managed to kill her with
his bare hands. His account of the incineration of the remains was also
problematic, since wood and paper alone would have had difficulty
reaching a sufficiently high temperature to reduce a human body to ash.He
admitted, when prodded, that the whole thing made little sense to him.
He did not know why he had done it. He confirmed with "I guess so," that
the remains in the fire pit were those of Katie Poirer, the girl he
abducted. When pressed to say why he only "guessed so," he said he
didn't know the answer to this question. He was then asked, "Then whose
remains are they?" He replied, "Well, I was asking that myself, man."When
the interview was concluded, Blom called two local television stations
to report what he had done and request that reporters now leave his
family in peace. The deal also gave seized property back to Amy Blom,
including the Moose Lake acreage, the home in Richfield, and the family
vehicle. Authorities did not yet say whether Blom was a suspect in other
kidnappings or murders, and the plea deal did not include any further
statements from Blom on this matter.For
the Poirier family, the confession was devastating, because they had
held out hope that Katie was still alive. Blom had now averred that she
had been murdered and cremated, for no reason other than his late-night
impulse. The maroon and gold ribbons, once given to searchers as
inspiration, were now handed out in memorial for kidnap victims like
Katie. But the family's sense of closure, such as it was, was to be
short-lived.

The Confession Collapses

Blom soon recanted,
claiming he made a false confession because of the stress of solitary
confinement and the "ten medications" he was taking. He said he'd been
hallucinating and had believed that his only way to escape the cell was
to tell authorities what they wanted to hear. But he'd not been in his
right mind, he now claimed, and had not known what he was saying. The
plea deal was rescinded, and attorneys on both sides prepared for a
trial. However, allegedly at his behest, the defense team had already
spoken to the press, reporting that Blom was guilty and that the remains
from the fire pit were Katie's.There are
different types of false confessions, and sometimes people just confess
spontaneously to something they did not do. It's usually in response to a
high profile case where fame is a possibility, but it may also occur to
protect someone or to expiate one's own sense of guilt for other
things. Some people anticipate that the interrogation will be too
stressful so they give in quickly to the pressure to confess, but
there's another type of phenomenon that can occur: people may
internalize assertions of guilt from the police and come to believe that
they committed a crime in which they had no part.False
confessions commonly occur under certain conditions: sleep deprivation,
feigned friendship, isolating the suspect by refusing a lawyer, using
leading questions, excessive use of threats, exposure to graphic crime
scene photos, and the suggestion that law enforcement already has
evidence against the person. Also, if promises are made contingent on
the person talking, he or she may do so just to relieve the stress, and
in that moment the consequences may not occur to them.The
characteristics of those most likely to offer up a false confession
include youth, a low IQ, mental illness or confusion, a high degree of
suggestibility, a trusting nature, low self-esteem, high anxiety, and
poor memory. Some of these traits are exacerbated by the fatigue of
lengthy interrogations, and anxiety may become confused with guilt.Whether Blom had actually confessed falsely or recanted falsely would now be for a jury to decide. Blom was headed to trial.

The Prosecution's Case

The trial began in June 2000,
taking five weeks to select the jury. The trial proper took an
additional five weeks, with over fifty witnesses called to testify,
including several key witnesses who would make all the difference.
Assistant Carlton County Attorney Thomas Pertler opened the case.

Thomas Pertler

Among the early witnesses, Blom's brother
testified that he had given the Blom family a box of old clothing,
including a New York Yankees jersey. Blom had earlier said he'd never
had such a shirt.More damaging was the testimony from the two
women whom Blom had kidnapped in 1983, who had agreed to testify about
how he had treated them. Jurors heard firsthand what he was capable of
doing. He had tied them to a tree, threatened them with a knife, and put
socks in their mouths. He choked one several times, each time reviving
her, and was preparing to complete his assault — he said he was going to
rape them—when a deputy happened to come by, causing Blom to flee into
the woods. He had been arrested two months later when one of the girls
recognized him, despite his having dyed his hair, and he pleaded guilty.
Both women, as girls, had resembled Katie.Forensic
odontologists then testified that the partial tooth was consistent with
Katie's age, gender and dental work. Dr. Ann Norrlander admitted she
had been uncertain at first that the item was even a tooth. When she
concluded it was, she had not initially thought it was Katie's, but then
had changed her mind. She admitted that odontological matching was more
an art than a science, but maintained that greater information offered
greater ability to make an identification. She testified that to a
reasonable degree of medical certainty, the tooth was Katie's. It was
the discovery of the chemicals in the filling material that had led her
to this conclusion.A videotape from
another store's security camera, which had captured Blom back in May,
showed that around the time of the abduction his hair, now gray, had had
blond tips, as affirmed by his barber, making him appear younger. The
image identified as Blom by credit card receipts with time stamps,
resembled the image of Katie's abductor at the Conoco store, but, for
reasons not explained, theses images were not placed side by side for
the jury.Most incriminating was Blom's
confession, which the judge allowed into evidence. Each juror was given a
transcript to follow along. Afterward, the courtroom was silent, save
for quiet sobs from Katie's relatives. The case against Blom at this
point seemed fairly strong.

Blom's Defense

Rodney Brodin, the lead defense attorney, called
his first witness on August 7. Amy Blom took the stand to testify that
her husband had been at home on the night that Katie had disappeared.
She smiled at Blom when she entered and he smiled back. On the stand,
she claimed she was able to recall where her husband had been that day
because the following day she had seen a broadcast about the girl's
disappearance. She gave it some attention because the location of her
disappearance was not far from the vacation property they owned at Moose
Lake, 110 miles from their home. Since Blom had a criminal record, she
had figured he would be a suspect, so she considered precisely where he
had been the evening before.He had come
home at 9:30 p.m. and they had gone to bed. When she had woken up in the
morning, the coffee had been ready, so it had seemed to her that he'd
been there the entire night. She could not say for certain, but she had
no recollection of him getting up and leaving.She
also testified that the police had bullied her with threats that they
would take her children away if she did not answer questions in the way
they wanted. "They called me a liar," she said. She also denied that she
had ever seen a baseball jersey in the clothing her brother-in-law had
given them and said she'd never seen her husband wear one. As she spoke,
Blom shed a few tears, noticeably wiping his eyes.The
lead defense attorney told jurors that while one witness had identified
Blom in a line-up, five others had not. Then he had his own
odontologist counter the testimony of the prosecution's experts
regarding the tooth. As for Blom's confession, the attorney called it a
"stupid" mistake. He claimed that another man had confessed as well, but
had not been arrested.On August 10, Blom
took the stand in his own defense. Under oath, he denied he had
kidnapped Katie Poirier and refused to let the prosecutor lead him into
talking about the details again. He was on the witness stand for over
three hours, alternately talking and crying. He claimed that his life
had been falling apart and he had been feeling sick at the time he
confessed. He added that his wife had threatened to commit suicide
because of the pressure from the media, so he'd decided to do anything
he could to be free of the cell in which he was imprisoned. He spent
quite a bit of time trying to get the jury to feel sorry for him, as if
he were the victim.He agreed he had made a
confession but said he had also recanted it. He had not been at Moose
Lake on the night of the murder, he now claimed, but rather had been at
home asleep with his wife, just as she had testified. Although he'd been
fishing there earlier in the evening, he was home by 10:00 p.m., well
before Katie had been taken from the store.Pertler
cross-examined him about his reasons for making the lengthy and
detailed confession. He led him through the details, but Blom gave only
abbreviated yes or no responses. Finally Blom told him he was getting
"upset" with her queries. Pertler also asked him about his past criminal
record and asked about the jersey. Blom claimed he had lied about it
during his bogus confession and that people who claimed to have seen him
wear it were mistaken. He now claimed he had never seen it before.In
short, Blom was forced to admit to lies and inconsistencies in his
statements to police early in the investigation, so taking the stand had
done him little good. He came off to many as a whiner trying to wriggle
out of punishment yet again. When the questioning was finished, Blom
seemed frustrated. He turned to the judge, swore, and asked if he was
allowed to make just one statement. He was told he was not. After
closing statements, the case went to the jury.

The Verdict and a Surprise

After ten hours of deliberations, three of which were spent listening to the confession tapes again, the jury found Blom guilty.All
in all, detectives had followed 3,500 leads and spent over $200,000 on
the case before its successful conclusion. But Blom would continue to
insist it was not over and predicted he would one day be exonerated. Heagain
proclaimed his innocence to reporters as he driven to serve a mandatory
life sentence without parole at a facility in Waynesburg, Penn. "I have
never killed anyone," he insisted. He was certain he had a good case
for an appeal, but he did not count on losing an apparent ally.Blom
appealed his conviction on half a dozen grounds, including that his
attorney had not worked hard enough to suppress his confession and that
the court had not allowed him to present evidence that another man had
committed the abduction and murder. He also believed the defense team
had made statements to reporters that had corrupted the jury pool before
the trial started. They had made statements, but supposedly at his
behest.

Katie Poirier

Apparently his wife now feared he might win.
No longer frightened of what he might do to her, Amy Blom now sent an
email to two Minnesota legislators, stating that Donald Blom had abused
her for years and that she believed he had murdered Katie Poirier. She
admitted that, due to her state of mind at the time of his trial, she
had been unable to tell the truth. She had falsely stated that he'd been
at home with her that night, but now she was ready to recant that
testimony. She was no longer married to him and no longer under his
domination. Now she could tell the truth: he had not been home that
night.Amy claimed she had endured Donald
Blom punching and kicking her for seven years. She felt guilty that she
had allowed it, and ashamed, but had felt helpless to do anything else
but endure living with him. She hoped one day to ask Katie's family for
their forgiveness, but understood if they did not wish to hear from her.
She believed that ultimately she could not have prevented what happened
to Katie, as she had no control over her husband. He went to the lake
property frequently to fish. He told her little, and she had not even
known before the investigation that he'd been married twice before. He
had taken her last name to try to conceal his past, but she had merely
thought it flattering."I now know," she
said to a reporter, "that I was in many ways his hostage, paralyzed to
speak up." Such feelings are common among women subjected to verbal and
physical spousal abuse, especially if they have children and have few or
no resources to help them leave. They feel trapped and demoralized.
Blom's sons affirmed the violence, describing Amy's bruises and black
eyes. She had attributed his foul moods to a bipolar disorder and had
learned to behave in submissive ways that did not provoke him.She
admitted that after the authorities discovered human bone fragments in
the fire pit, she had asked Blom about them and he'd turned on her with,
"You're not f stupid, are you?" To her, that had been an incriminating
statement, but she had desperately wanted to believe that he was
innocent. She now believed, she wrote, that her husband had committed
other crimes, including murder. The authorities did, too. Blom had led
Katie easily from the store, as if he was used to doing it. They
suspected he might be a serial killer.In
2004, an appeals court issued an 81-page ruling that upheld his
conviction. While his trial had not been perfect, the justices
determined, it had been fair. They saw no reason to reverse the decision
or grant a new trial.

Blom Seeks Attention

Donald Blom

During the summer of 2006, Blom appeared ready to offer more.
In a letter, he said, "It is time to talk," and Bloomington Police
Sergeant Mark Stehlik said Blom had supposedly been willing to answer
questions about some local unsolved homicides. Apparently Blom wanted to
deal. He hoped that in exchange for information he would be transferred
to a prison closer to his relatives. Investigators agreed to the deal
and arranged for the transfer. Then they went to see him in the hope of
closing cases from as long ago as thirty years.Yet
they also knew that Blom was a manipulative con artist. During his days
as a criminal, he'd often changed his looks, name, and general
presentation. As a registered sex offender, he'd been living under the
name Donald Pince, but that had changed when he married Amy. He was a
suspect in the sexual assault and murder of a nineteen-year-old student,
whose corpse had been left in the woods near where Blom had lived. In
another murder in 1983, Blom had already admitted observing part of the
assault, and he also said he might have killed a man whose body was
never found.However, when detectives
arrived with the transfer letter, the expected confession never
materialized. Instead, Blom talked about other matters. He did this for
three days, effectively killing the deal as well as dashing hopes for
case resolutions.But he has advocates who
maintain that he's innocent. On some Websites, advocates claim that he
was railroaded and that his trial was a travesty of justice. It's often
difficult to know in such cases when a killer is lying or telling the
truth. Clearly, Blom has managed to convince people on both sides.At
the end of December in 2007, the Minnesota Supreme Court denied Blom's
third petition for a new evidentiary hearing. He claimed that his
confession had been coerced and that he had been improperly denied the
opportunity to gather evidence demonstrating his innocence. He also
complained about the fact that his imprisonment in another state
hindered him from working on his appeal.However,
the court decided that Blom's claims were procedurally barred, so he
has effectively run out of options. Whether Blom will one day be charged
or convicted of other killings remains to be seen.

2 comments:

We need to evolve as a society and either start locking the pos's up for life until they die in prison, or, immediately try them, find them guilty, and execute them - with a simple, single bullet to the head. With Donald Trump as president, America has spoken. The time for political correctness and liberal weakness and forgiveness is over. If this pos SOB had been properly dealt with in the first place, he never would've been there to murder a good, innocent young girl. SHAME on ALL of you naive, idealistic, progressive young pukes (and the Communist professors who taught you all your weak Lib views) for making you all hate everything that is right and love every sorry, wrong thing in the world. The blood of countless victims is on YOUR hands as you stand with and argue for thieves and rapists and murderers and criminals. Hopefully when the civil war comes - and believe me, it's coming - the brave and strong will line you up against the wall blindfolded, next to all those criminals you chose to fight for.

In 1997 I worked in St. Cloud at the holiday gas station off of hwy 10 , I was 19 yrs old - this story is not a lie and for the last almost 20 yrs I have been suspicious - and tonight for the first time ever I saw the Katie poirer story and your not going to believe this but that mother fucker was the same idiot that tried to abduct me at that gas station 20 yrs ago what stumps me tho is the man who tried to take me drove a white truck with a topper not a black one , so I'm working at the holiday me and the manager and I was outside getting propane for this couple and filling their tank anyways we get done they leave - nobody is around and I start heading back towards the store all of the sudden a white truck pulls up and a guy gets out guess who yep that's right Donald blom- he was nice looking clean cut no facial hair tho and he walks up to me and says hey I need some propane I said ok get your propane tank and I'll fill it up , we'll all the sudden he says to me as he starts now limping "well I need a favor from you " I was like huh ok what's up? He says " well I see I hurt my knee recently and well my propane tank is in the back of my truck , could u help me get it out ?" Sure , I said and we walked to the back of his truck and he opens it up to include the topper , the truck was clean and on the right was two boxes , however I didn't see any propane tank so I said to him " well where is it , I don't see it ?" He says well I see those boxes it's behind those - Ull have to crawl in there to get it - now obviously now I'm getting a little suspicious exspecially since even when I leaned I saw no tank so I said to him - " well I'm not real comfortable with that- tell u what the propane is 10.00 u give me the money , I'll go in and pay since it's gotta be prepaid anyways u can get the tank and when I get back out we will fill it up - he paused for a second and then said ok , gave me 10.00 so I went in and paid well Long story short when I came back out he was gone . I told the manager what had happened and my parents that day but it wasn't until now when I saw this story and what the fuck do my wondering eyes appear the same asshole that tried to take me was the same asshole that took Katie poirer. Unbelievable right ? I am stunned and st the same time very sad for her yet very grateful i am alive today cuz that could have very well have been me . :( he was nice and handsome I do remember that and I would have never thought this . But it defientelt was not a black truck like the story said I remember it verrrry well it was white with a truck topper . That's something I never ever forget . I'm grateful I told him no - but he was very smooth - someone would have fell for that , shit had he had a tank even I would have . I am truly stunned . He's a monster !